Right now, Syria isn't so much a place that people jet off to as it is a place they escape from. Even so, armchair travelers can visit via award-winning foreign correspondent Janine di Giovanni's latest book. Taking readers on an eye-opening journey to the troubled country ruled by a dictator and riven by civil war, di Giovanni describes the brutality of post-Arab Spring life here. Having been based in the Middle East for over two decades, she knows Syria and evocatively shows it to readers through the stories of everyday people, including doctors, nuns, activists, a baker, a musician, and a student. A "brilliant, necessary book" says Kirkus Reviews.

In Geoff Dyer's latest thought-provoking book, a small volume of travel essays, he asks big questions: who are we? why are we here? Pondering them, he journeys to a variety of disparate locales, including Beijing to visit the Forbidden City, Tahiti to learn about the artist Gauguin, Norway to see the Northern Lights (though he didn't see them), New Mexico to see the land art installation "The Lightning Field," and Los Angeles to visit philosopher Theodor Adorno's former home. Photographs enhance the witty and astute observations by the sometimes persnickety Dyer, who also addresses his recent mild stroke in the final essay of this "mesmerizing compendium" (Kirkus Reviews).

After graduating from college, well-to-do Katherine Wilson left Washington, D.C. and headed to Naples, Italy for an unpaid internship at the American Consul. Though Naples was considered "dirty and dangerous" by her friends and family, she discovered that people either loved or hated the city, and she loved it. Not only did she learn to eat better (she'd been a binge eater), but she was embraced by an Italian family and their chic, well-connected matriarch, Raffaella, who taught Wilson about Neapolitan culture and how to cook delicious local foods -- and eventually lessons about marriage and motherhood when Wilson married her son. This lighthearted, charming look at Italian life includes recipes.

When aging Mark Twain set out to travel the world in 1895 on what amounts to a comedy tour, he did so because he was broke. Desperately needing money to pay back his many creditors, he performed to English-speaking audiences in the United States, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Africa, and, his favorite stop, India. After the year-long tour was over, he spent an additional four years in Europe. Drawing on newspaper accounts, Twain's own journals and letters, and unpublished materials, historian Richard Zacks presents a fast-paced, humorous, and informative look at Twain's late-life adventures (including how he got into such dire financial straits to begin with).

The Brazilian Amazon

Brazil hosts the 2016 Summer Olympic games from August 5 to August 21, and since there are several fascinating books about the Brazilian jungle, we highlighted a few here. If you want a book about the host city, Rio de Janeiro, pick up Juliana Barbassa's excellent Dancing with the Devil in the City of God.

Automobile manufacturer Henry Ford wanted to secure a rubber supply for tire production, so in 1928 he decided to establish his own rubber plantation with a model factory town for his workers -- in the heart of the Amazonian rain forest. Author Greg Grandin recounts the bizarre true story of Ford's high-minded, utterly wrong-headed efforts to establish small-town America in a hostile jungle environment. From his failure to consult botanists on how rubber trees should be cultivated to his mistaken expectations that indigenous Brazilians would welcome a 20th-century North American lifestyle, this compelling narrative demonstrates that Ford's visionary ambition and arrogant folly were two sides of the same coin.

In 1925, famed British explorer Percy Fawcett voyaged up the Amazon in search of a city he called "Z" and others call El Dorado. Although Fawcett was a seasoned adventurer, he and his two companions (including his 21-year-old son, Jack) were never seen again. Decades later, journalist David Grann learned about the headline-making disappearance and joined the ranks of those who've attempted to learn what happened to Fawcett -- several of whom have lost their lives in the process. An account of Grann's modern-day foray into the jungle is interwoven with details about Fawcett's adventures, which are based on the explorer's diaries, letters, and other accounts. Featuring blow-darts, giant snakes, and hostile locals, this gripping narrative reads "with all the pace and excitement of a movie thriller" (The New York Times), and, indeed, a film based on the book comes out later this year.

Imagine walking 4,000 miles across South America over the course of two years. That's just what former British Army Captain Ed Stafford did between April 2008 and August 2010 in his quest to be the first person to walk the entire length of the Amazon River, from the Pacific coast of Peru, through Colombia, and on to Brazil's Atlantic coast. In this "gripping celebration of physical and mental endurance" (Kirkus Reviews), Stafford provides details about the trip's hardships and dangers (boredom, jaguars, flooding, snakes, etc.), the people he meets (armed natives, his long-term walking partner), and deforestation. Though Stafford's a more experienced outdoorsman than David Gran (The Lost City of Z) or Mark Adams (Turn Right at Machu Picchu), all three authors are appealing guides who offer a fresh look at modern South American exploration.

In order to protect the last uncontacted tribes of indigenous peoples, a group went in search of them. In 2002, National Geographic writer Scott Wallace joined the 30+ person team led by charismatic explorer Sydney Possuelo, director of Brazil's Department of Isolated Indians, and traveled deep into the Upper Amazon. Hoping to find evidence that the "People of the Arrow," a group of deft archers, were well, the middle-aged Wallace and his teammates spent three months on the harrowing journey, dealing with biting insects, deadly jaguars, and trouble among team members.